


Knight to Bishop

by madwriteson



Category: Paladin’s Grace (T. Kingfisher)
Genre: Beartongue is old enough to know what she wants, F/M, Flirting via neck massage, and what she wants is a giant slab of paladin beef
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-12
Updated: 2020-02-12
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:00:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22678369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madwriteson/pseuds/madwriteson
Summary: I love Bishop Beartongue dearly and love older woman/younger man pairings even more dearly, especially when the guy is completely overwhelmed by her, so of course I wanted to figure out how Beartongue and Istvhan might have started their, uh, liaison.
Relationships: Bishop Beartongue/Istvhan
Comments: 7
Kudos: 32





	Knight to Bishop

It had started because Beartongue had been up late with the paperwork.

She didn’t really remember what the paperwork was, now. In truth, it didn’t matter; as Bishop of the temple to the White Rat in Archon’s Glory, her life consisted of little more than paperwork, paperwork, and even more paperwork. It was always a relief when something happened to interrupt that tedium.

Like the remaining paladins of the Saint of Steel, for example.

In this case, one particular paladin.

She had been half-slumped over her desk, rubbing her neck—which was stiff—and trying to summon the will to work on whatever she had been working on when there was a knock on her half-open office door. Her secretary had gone home hours ago; he had a home outside of the Temple to go to, lucky bastard. Beartongue supposed she could have chosen not to use the bishop’s quarters in the temple, could have purchased some property in the city, but what was the point of having a home she never saw?

The knock, when she glanced up, a glare at the ready, turned out to be Istvhan. He gave her an apologetic look, almost guilty—no one did guilty like paladins, they really didn’t—and made as if to close the door.

“Don’t,” she said, suddenly desperate for company. And a distraction from the paperwork. “Come sit with me a while.”

“All right.” He seemed subdued, which was unusual for Istvhan. Usually she couldn’t get the man to stop talking. He looked ridiculous sitting in one of the wooden chairs across her desk. He dwarfed it completely, and it creaked warningly under his weight... which, to be fair, included a healthy padding of fat over the muscle that made him so intimidating.

He dwarfed her, too, which was not so easily done.

Beartongue leaned back in her chair, studying Istvhan carefully, and just as carefully tilting her head from side to side to loosen stiff neck muscles. If she wasn’t careful, they would lock up as she slept tonight, and she would spend the next week with a sore neck that twinged every time she turned her head. And wincing every time she looked at something wasn’t exactly dignified, when you were a bishop. “Something troubling you?”

A wry look flitted across Istvhan’s face. So. The same thing that kept him—and the other remaining paladins of the Saint of Steel—up late at night. “The usual,” he said, confirming her suspicions.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

He opened his mouth and shut it again, and then shook his head. “Not particularly. It’s just very...” he tilted his head back and shut his eyes. “Loud. It’s very loud tonight.”

Those called by the White Rat were not typically touched by divinity, not in the way that other gods touched their followers. The best she could say, on a good day, was that she had eased the suffering of mankind just a little, and that was divinity enough. Beartongue had no reference for how the paladins must feel, even now, when the seven who remained seemed to be more or less stable.

Istvhan’s eyes flickered open. “And you? What’s keeping you awake?”

Beartongue gestured expansively at the piles of paper that covered her desk. “The usual.” Her shoulder twinged as she spread her arms wide, and she winced. She had a cloth ball made of firmly wrapped rags that she sometimes used against the wall to roll out knots in her back before she went to bed, and she would definitely need to spend some time with it tonight. For now, she reached behind herself, digging a fist into her back.

Istvhan laughed at her poor attempt at a joke even as he gave her a concerned look. “Need a hand?” He wiggled his fingers in her direction.

She frowned her confusion at him. “A hand?”

He shrugged. “Training the way we do results in sore muscles. I’m pretty good at massaging them into submission.” He grinned cheekily at her and winked, a heartening sign of his usual cheerful personality, despite being overly familiar.

Beartongue only hesitated for a moment, but she did hesitate. Istvhan had a bit of a reputation as a ladies’ man, and that grin—and especially that wink—implied that her shoulders weren’t the only part of her he would like to massage into submission, given the chance. “Show me what you can do, then.”

Istvhan looked startled, as if he hadn’t expected that to work, but he hauled himself to his feet and came around her desk anyway.

Beartongue felt very small indeed, with him looming over the back of her chair.

Strange to think that she trusted him enough to put herself in such a vulnerable position. Two years ago, she would not have, but two years ago the paladins of the Saint of Steel had to a man and woman been shattered husks of human beings, unable to trust their minds or bodies. Even now, they weren’t whole, even now, an emptiness haunted their eyes from time to time... but they had learned to trust that they would not be a danger to themselves or others in the time since, and that had done a great deal to keep them steady.

He settled his hands on her shoulders. They were warm, and callused, and steady, and oh damn it had been a long time since another person had touched her like this. A bishop couldn’t get too familiar with her subordinates.

But the paladins of the Saint of Steel, even if the White Rat housed and fed them, even if they offered their services to the Rat, even if they chose to follow her commands when it suited them—and it almost always suited them—at their core, they did not belong to her order, not really. They might choose to serve because they wished to repay the Rat for what it had done for them, that damn paladin sense of guilt and obligation, but they weren’t hers, not like the clerks and lawyers and priests who made up the vast majority of the White Rat’s followers.

Istvhan’s thumbs dug into a tense spot on Beartongue’s neck and her mind blanked out in a searing pain that lead immediately to relief of a headache that she hadn’t realized she’d had.

She wasn’t sure _anyone_ had ever touched her like this. She slumped forward over her desk with a groan.

“Too hard?” Istvhan asked, releasing the pressure a little.

Beartongue wasn’t certain she was capable of speech any more, but managed to force out a few words anyway. “Nope. Please. Keep going.”

Istvhan let out a satisfied little grunt and worked his way down her neck and the upper part of her back before pulling her upright again so that he could attack her shoulders. “You know, I make a muscle rub that might be good for you,” he said conversationally as he worked. “I could bring you some, if you’d like.”

Beartongue grunted back in agreement. Right now, she would probably agree to anything Istvhan suggested. “It’s this damn desk job,” she complained, letting off steam she probably shouldn’t. But she thought it would be safe enough to complain to him. The man might give in to spouting whatever ridiculous nonsense was foremost on his mind without a thought, but she’d never known him to betray a confidence or be actively malicious. “I’ve got a set of exercises I go through in the morning to make sure I’m not completely sedentary, but...” she stopped on a low hiss of breath as Istvhan found the knot in her shoulder that had been bothering her earlier.

“But?” He came to a halt, resting his hands on her shoulders, the fingers curled around and just brushing her collarbones.

Beartongue took a deep breath, just to make sure her lungs still worked. She suspected she hadn’t been breathing as he had worked away at her shoulders. It would explain why she was suddenly lightheaded and feeling just a little bit impulsive, certainly.

She tilted her head back to look up at Istvhan. “Want to have sex?”

His eyes opened wide, and his hands tensed on her shoulders for a moment and then released, dropping from her shoulders and back to his sides. “Not what I was expecting you to say.”

“I’m old enough that I’ve learned to be straightforward about what I want. Well?”

He grinned at her, and oh, if she’d thought that earlier grin rich with implied meaning, this one was even more so.

This grin was downright _naughty_.

“I thought you’d never ask,” he said.

**Author's Note:**

> Me, more than a year after writing this: *reads Paladin’s Strength*
> 
> Istvhan: *uses shoulder rubs for seduction purposes*
> 
> Me: *suddenly very smug*


End file.
